Step #3: Check Your Hardware

And this is where it gets sticky. There’s a high possibility that the reason for Peggy’s poor video quality is some malfunctioning piece of hardware. The only way to test this theory is to check your hardware. Luckily, that doesn’t mean you need to take apart your computer and fiddle around with knobs and circuits. Nowadays, Windows and Apple computers have built-in software that will allow you to run diagnostics on your computer.

For Windows machines, the best thing to do is to pop in your operating system CD and reboot your computer. This will boot your computer from the CD which will also contain diagnostic software.

Depending on the results of your hardware test, you might be able to tell right away if it is the hard drive or the graphics card acting up. More often than not, these diagnostic tools will give you more information about the problem which you can then plug into Google to help find the solution.

With that, here are your 3 Quick and Dirty tips on how to troubleshoot your technology:

Do a few quick Google searches to see if there are any easy fixes to your problem (such as reloading software).

Mentally go over the different pieces of software or hardware that could be causing the issue.

If you think you are having a problem with a specific piece of hardware, use a built-in diagnostic utility to check if your hardware is working properly.

Well, that’s it for today! Be sure to check out all my earlier episodes at techtalker.quickanddirtytips.com. And if you have further questions about this podcast or want to make a suggestion for a future episode, post your comments on the Tech Talker Facebook page.